Recent book (authors Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman) on the possible benefits of not maintaining a strictly organised working space.

Have a Messy Desk? Congrats, Youre More Productive

Yet messy people are often cast in a negative light. In one study cited by [National Association of Professional Organizers], two-thirds of respondents believed workers with messy desks were seen as less career-driven than their neater colleagues.

Haven’t read the book and, as academics, we should probably be wary of “research findings” by NAPO or by Abrahamson and Freedman. But that Reuters piece does make some insightful points about people, like me, who find alternative ways to organise their lives.

As per the quote above, there is a stigma about us. At least, there is a stigma in the “general population.” There is plenty of stigmatisation of “messy people” in advertisement, among office workers, and in popular books. The whole “reflection of your inner self” ideology. “You can’t organise your life if your desk is cluttered.” “Clear your mind by putting things in neatly labeled boxes.” “You’ll never be able to finish any project if you have such a mess on your hands.”

But such a stigma is much less prevalent among academics or, even, among many members of the “geek crowd.” Those of us who handle most of our work-related material through computers (either on hard drives or online) know that it’s extremely easy to find information very quickly without the need of folder hierarchies. Hence Spotlight in Mac OS X and Google Desktop Search on Windows XP and Vista.

In my case, a messy desktop has often been my “workspace” while folders were mostly meant as archives. The same applies to my online accounts these days. Gmail as a centralised location for some of my important data. Browser tabs as “modes.” Search replacing “filing cabinets.” Outlining as a second step after note-taking/brainstorming.

Like many others, I have “a lot of things going on at the same time” and am solely responsible for all of these “projects.” Project management strategies typically make little sense to my individual work though they can work really well for collaboration with others. In other words, I need my “desk” to be messy so that I can do the kind of work I do well.

This all relates to Jess’s points about social bookmarking, of course. I’m also reminded of Edward T. Hall’s ideas about “polychronic time” in Dance of Life. As it so happens, DoL is one of the first books I have read that was written by an anthropologist. Hall has been known for a few things in the field of cultural anthropology (mostly to do with gestural behaviour) but he has always been something of a maverick. Not that I want to rehabilitate his work but I do think there’s some valuable insight to be found in this specific book. Hall has been one of relatively few anthropologists of the time to think about the perception of time, something which many people are doing now using Schutz has their basis. It might well be that a “polychronic time” may be quite compatible with the current tendency for a “multi-tasking mode,” among human beings. In such a mode, neat organisation may be less desirable.